Translation:The earth was
empty and chaotic and dark above the depths and a spirit of Gd wafted back and
forth above the water.

Letters in this lesson: (“oo”) ח, ך, ע, פּ, נ, וּ

Vocabulary in this lesson:

הָיְתָה

was (f.s.)

תֹהוּ

empty

בֹהוּ

chaotic

חשֶׁךְ

dark, darkness

עַל

on, over, above

תְהוֹם

depths

רוּחַ

spirit, wind

מְרַחֶפֶת

waft, 3rd f. s., piel form (repetitive)

עַל־פְּנֵי

above

פְּנֵי

face, construct state, masculine plural

Lots of stuff here.We have our first occurrence of “be” and it
is in the past tense.I know that it’s
feminine gender because of the tav in it.One thing to remember about Hebrew is that
it’s one of those languages which can leave “be” out of a present-tense
sentence.If you find a verse that looks
as if it doesn’t have a verb in it, try sticking “is” in.If it doesn’t make sense, that verse is not a
complete sentence.That’s important for
interpreting scripture. See the Fact-Checking discussion on battery.

Notice that ha once again
uses the qamats,the little hat symbol, for the “a” sound.It has to because there’s an alef
after it.But it once again uses the
little dash before the mem in the last word, and once again the mem
has a dagesh in it.I am going to
just point these things out.When we get
a lot of samples under our belts, then I can show you what they have in common.

“Be”.The root letters of “be” are heh yod heh.In most languages that conjugate their verbs,
“be” is an irregular verb.Not in
Hebrew.How you spell a verb in Hebrew,
when it’s conjugated, depends on its root letters.Some letters are called “weak” but that’s
just terminology.What it means is that
their version of regular is different from words that don’t have those letters
in it.Heh and alef are
“weak” letters.Yod is a
different kettle of fish; it can disappear completely and so can nun.But that’s their way of being regular; it’s
not right to call these irregular verbs.